WRTV (channel 6) is a television station in Indianapolis, Indiana, United States, affiliated with ABC and owned by the E. W. Scripps Company.

In late October 1970, WFBM-AM-FM-TV were sold to McGraw-Hill in a group deal that also involved Time-Life's other radio and television combinations in Denver, San Diego and Grand Rapids, Michigan; and KERO-TV in Bakersfield, California.

[14] In order to comply with the Federal Communications Commission's new restrictions on concentration of media ownership that went into effect shortly afterward, McGraw-Hill was required to sell the radio stations in Indianapolis, Denver, San Diego and Grand Rapids to other companies.

KERO-TV, KLZ-TV (now KMGH-TV) in Denver and KOGO-TV (now KGTV) in San Diego were retained by McGraw-Hill along with WFBM-TV.

[22] On January 31, 1995,[23] WBAK-TV in Terre Haute (which changed its call letters to WFXW in 2005) ended its 22-year affiliation with ABC to become that market's original Fox affiliate, citing the low viewership it had suffered due to the then-overabundance of higher-rated ABC stations in adjacent markets (including WRTV) that were receivable in the area.

This left viewers with only fringe access from WRTV (which can be received in Terre Haute via an outdoor antenna and became the default ABC affiliate on cable providers on the Indiana side of the market), and other out-of-market ABC stations from Evansville, Indiana, and Champaign, Illinois (both of which were carried on cable on the Illinois side of the market), as Terre Haute did not have enough stations to support full-time affiliations from four networks (only three commercial full-power stations—WTWO, WTHI-TV and WBAK—are licensed to the market, and ABC opted not to relegate itself to a secondary affiliation).

[26] The deal made WRTV a sister station to Scripps flagship and adjacent-market ABC affiliate WCPO-TV in Cincinnati.

[27] In May 2014, Scripps announced that WRTV's North Meridian Street studios would begin handling the master control operations of the company's 19 television stations as early as July of that year, expanding upon an existing regional centralcasting hub built under McGraw-Hill ownership.

During the 1987-88 season, WRTV preempted ABC's 9:30 p.m. time slot on Fridays, following the move of Max Headroom to Thursdays, in favor of the short-lived Suzanne Somers vehicle She's the Sheriff.

[31] In 2004, WRTV, along with the other McGraw-Hill stations, claimed that they tried to preempt Saving Private Ryan, but out of desperation, aired the film.

On May 25, 2016, with the 100th anniversary event sold out, IMS and WRTV announced that channel 6 would air the Indianapolis 500 live in the market for the first time since 1999.

[37] In both situations, the station rescheduled ABC's Monday lineup: Dancing with the Stars aired the following Tuesday afternoon before the station's 5 p.m. newscast on the night of its original broadcast, but did not open a separate voting window for the Indianapolis market, while it aired Castle after ABC's late night programming.

Station vice president and general manager Don Lundy stated that it launched the latter program in order to reach viewers whose longer workdays and commutes prevented them from arriving home in time to watch a 5 or 6 p.m. newscast.

[38] On October 12, 2008, WRTV became the third television station in the state of Indiana to begin broadcasting its local newscasts in high definition.

With the upgrade, the station unveiled a new graphics package (replacing one based on Denver sister station KMGH-TV's graphics of that time) and updated music from Gari Media Group's "Eyewitness News: New Generation" package, along with a refresh of its news set and a revised logo for all newscasts.

As a result, WRTV moved the weekend edition of Good Morning America to 7 a.m. (the network's recommended timeslot for the program in all time zones) on both days.

Some HTSI/HTSN content was simulcast on WRTV's primary channel, including a half-hour report in the early morning hours on Saturdays and Sundays.

[48] On October 3, 2011, WRTV began carrying the health and lifestyle-oriented service Live Well Network (which is owned by ABC corporate parent The Walt Disney Company) on digital subchannel 6.3.